


Shadowbun: A Night on the Tiles

by JackFields



Series: T3 Shadowbun stories [1]
Category: Shadowrun, Zootopia (2016)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-08-12 08:49:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7928389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackFields/pseuds/JackFields
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I really enjoyed Boney_M's Shadowbun story from last week, and I wanted to jump on the bandwagon for this TT submission.  Obviously this will make a lot more sense if you know the Shadowrun RPG universe, but imagine Tolkienesque fantasy plopped into 2050's era cyberpunk.  Orks and Trolls (the so called Goblinized races) are a new underclass, (some) Elves consider themselves the new master race, and they don't get along at ALL.  Dwarves will just kick you in the junk and drink their beer either way...</p><p>Coffin hotel, think of the Japan style capsule hotel.  Nikko and Judy were probably shacked up in a troll-sized unit, but they all come with Awakened bedbugs and dirty bedsheets.</p><p>Pobre is the name of the Feathered Serpent (Central/South American dragon subspecies, did I mention there are dragons now?) that was part of the EU fiction, he was a general pain in the ass to Aztechnology and ended up as the "Governor" of the breakaway Yucatan State.  Pobrecito is a soy-based grain alcohol that trades on his name in the Zootopian version of UCAS, but don't tell that to Judy.</p><p>Mister Johnson is the generic psueudonym for respectable types negotiating with 21'st century murder-hobos, in case you don't want to have your real name associated with whatever terrible plan they come up with to earn your money.  Judy watches too much bad trideo and is trying roleplay the hard-boiled, sexy mercenary.  Dumb bunny...</p><p>Who was the late, lamented GMan?  Who knows...   Could have been a simple baker, driven to a life of violence and crime when his business was driven into the ground by a Mafia grudge.</p><p>I freely admit that I know next to nothing about dance, I just opened up the Wiki for Glossary_of_dance_moves and started grabbing anything that looked sensible.  Hopefully Nikko would not have accidentally kung-fu'ed Judy into next week with those moves...</p></blockquote>





	Shadowbun: A Night on the Tiles

From all the way down the block, the greenskin bar looked and sounded like trouble. A ramshackle fence made from scavenged metal surrounded a dirt parking lot, filled with go-ganger bikes and battered work trucks. Two cheap looking prefabricated buildings leaned up against each other at the back of the yard, covered in peeling duraplas paint. A few strategic spray-painted tags let the passer-by know who owned the place. No neon signs here, nor any AR elements with a fancy logo and drink menus, just a plywood board with the name "Slaughterhouse" painted across it, lit up from below with a stolen street light. A deep bassline was rumbling through the night, Trog Rock playing plenty loud. 

The fox slipped through a gap in the fence panels and paused, scanning the parking lot and then back over his shoulder. His long Elven ears were perked up and over his head, trying to detect any lurking threats. Ducking into the shadows behind an ancient Bulldog van parked along the fence line, he paged into his implanted commlink, eyes becoming unfocused as they brought up his encrypted communication suite. Faint green light shone from his eyes, flickering in intricate patterns as he slipped between anonymized chat and email logs, then a quick scan of the local Matrix, and a final double-check of his commlink's security suite. His fixer had sent a message to let him know that the Ork was still here, ready to do business. But first he was going to have to get to the other side of that door, past several thousand kilos of very tough Ork and Troll gangers who would NOT appreciate his company. Time to put that part of the plan into motion.

Reaching one hand up and behind him, he softly knocked out the code on the panel door of the van - "Shave and a haircut, 20 Nuyen" - hearing the door slide open behind him and trying not to squeal as a meaty Troll fist snatched him up into the darkness inside. His darklight vision module had automatically kicked in, and the eyes of the Troll shone with an eerie glow in the enhanced image as he stared down at the fox. Resting on his haunches, he still towered over the fox. A pair of curling horns jutted from it's forehead, sweeping back and around a pair of enormous grey-skinned ears.

"Hoi Nikko, long time and no see! You is here for some sneaky-peakey?"

"Finn, you always assume the worst, maybe I just wanted a few drinks with you in the back of this horrible old van?" the fox grinned up at the Troll, looking into the craggy face. He had known Finn since his childhood, from before the Awakening had scrambled Finn's DNA and turned the pint-sized Fennic fox into a hulking Troll. It had also given Finn magical talent, specifically in the Shamanistic arts.

"Damm'e knife ears, tell Finn the truth, or maybe I make a 'mistake' and you get to keep disguise!" Finn snorted as he rummaged through a plastic garbage bag of clothing, he pulled out a grimy hooded sweater and pushed it into Nikko's arms. "Put 'dis on, I had Money Badger sleep on it last four or five nights." Nikko wrinkled his long nose as he pulled on the baggy sweater, it was tailored for an Ork and although they were nearly the same height, Nikko looked like he could go missing in it. It was a material component of the spell for Nicko to wear something that held the physical essence of an Ork, if he hoped to disguise himself as one.

"Did you ask him not to bathe for the whole time?" Nikko asked, taking shallow breaths until he had gotten used to the musky funk.

"Uhhh, maybe, don't really remember" the Troll evaded, rooting through another garbage bag for heavy boots and a threadbare pair of pants, handing these over to the fox with a grunt. Nikko turned around to shimmy out of clothes, slipping on the borrowed ones and pulling an pair of thick hiking socks doused in AntiBac from his pocket. The last time that he had borrowed a pair of Money's shoes, he had ended up with a fungal infection under his toe claws that turned them green. Finn looked him over with a critical eye, then nodded and said "Best we gonna do without his blood. You ready?" The fox nodded, and the Troll reached into his shirt, to pull out a sorcerer's fetish on a leather thong. In his other hand, he grasped a bottle of cheap brandy; Finn took a double swallow of the liquor and coughed vile fumes over Nikko.

The Troll started to whisper the words of power, calling to his air Spirit to perform the illusion magic. Nikko's cybernetic vision was unable to sense the magical entity, but he thought that he could hear a rustling, like a spring's gentle breeze. Finn was chanting, imploring the Spirit, waving his hands like he was trying to fan himself on a hot day, and the rustling noise steadily grew to a breeze, then a rushing wind. Nikko could start to feel a draft on his face, then his whole body, it felt like he was standing his ground against a rising windstorm. Suddenly, a powerful gust of hot desert wind scorched past him, Nikko was thrown off his feet and into the wall of the van. Collapsing into the trash bags of food and clothing, he shook his head to clear it and looked over to the Troll, who was down on his hands and knees, gasping from the drain of spellcasting.

Nikko patted his chest, surprised as always to feel how the hooded sweater was now tight across a barrel chest, the sleeves bulging with newfound muscles. The illusion spell had given him the appearance of an Ork, down to the tusks that now appeared in sillouette at the bottom of his vision. He never really understood why his cybereyes were fooled as well. He felt up and double checked his ears, glad to find them severly reduced, thick and knotted with cartilage. Finn nodded his approval at the transformation, "Dat's better! You gonna walk right in 'dere like you was born a Ork!" Nikko chuckled, the sound coming out with a deep rasp that he always thought made him sound like he had a chest infection.

"Heh heh, seen any Dandelion Eaters round here, bruv'a?"

"Wot? You think I'd let Panzees come skulking round here?" the troll growled back, grinning at Nikko. "Go get em, blud, just be careful, get back before dawn. I ain't gonna be able to help if Mask wears off." Finn slapped him on the shoulder and opened the door for him.

Nikko ducked out the van's sliding door and moved to the side furthest from the bar. He glanced out from the shadows, looking for any passers-bye, then stepped out and started walking nonchalantly. _'Easy, easy, you're not in a hurry, just here for a few drinks and then back home to the wife and gremlins'_ he thought, trying to psyche himself into the role of an Ork. Closer in, he saw the doorman notice him, and made himself relax, slouching into the greasy hoodie and making a pretense of patting at his pockets. At the door, he grinned up at the big bouncer, ( _'More like a Splatter'_ he thought) and said "I's 'ere to meet with Judy Nails. She still 'ere?"

The troll scowled down at him and asked "Who want to know? I ain't seen you before."

Nikko had been expecting this, and had not come unprepared. "Well I'm her uncle, but don't tell yer I told you that. I wanted to buy her a drink, tell her to keep her chin up, loads of Orks out of work these days yaknow." Nikko pattered on, trying to charm the bouncer, seeing that his praise and self-deprecation was starting to take hold. Finally, having had enough of Nikko's badgering, the big troll grunted and stepped aside,

"She's in the back room, but you watch out. Don't know you and I don't wanna hear you cause any trouble."

Nikko smiled and ducked past the bouncer, heading into the bar. Red lights flashed and spun over the stage as the band swung through an incredibly loud, but not too skillful rendition of "Big Bad Mamma". Nikko ducked aside as three Orks wrestled and brawled with each other, and then had to quickly dodge to avoid another angry Troll bouncer stomping over to dispense indiscriminate justice. He side-stepped and slid through the crowd towards the bar, and bought a pint of TuskSplitter, taking a quick gulp and trying not to wince at the strong Orkish brew. His enhanced biochemistry would dispose of the alcohol more quickly than an unaltered humanoid, but he had to make sure that he didn't let it get on top of him. Pint in hand, he carefully made his way past the dance floor, deeper into the recesses of the ramshackle building.

Nikko heard her before he managed to spot her, a hoarse shouting followed by the sound of breaking glass. "Hey! HEY! You call this a Carrotini? Where's the rest of the vodka!?! I know where you sleep, Whiskers, don't fuck with me!" The aggravated speaker was perched on a low table, ready to hurl more glassware after the rapidly fleeing waiter. Nikko took advantage of her distraction to study the Street Samurai, hopefully his newest team member. She was a Goblinized bunny, maybe half a head shorter than him, but built from her boots upwards with solid muscle. Black BDU pants with integrated Kevlar panels, a thick and well-worn armor jacket, and a spiky pink fauxhawk. Her ears were pierced on the leading edges with silver ammo casing studs, and the left was a few inches shorter than the right. More than just natural muscle, if his research was correct she was supposed to have been biomodded, he was here to find out exactly what she was packing.

She had noticed him by now, eyes narrowing as she studied his face. "I don't know you, and you don't have my next drink, so I suggest you get lost, old timer..." she growled, squaring up to him and bringing her hands to a ready posture.

Nikko smiled and raised his hands in a placating manner "Hey, Judy, Captain Clawhauser sends his regards."

She might not think much of him, but that name brought her up short, she blinked in surprise and demanded "The Captain sent you? What's in Corelli's mandolin case?"

"It was a balalaika, not a mandolin, and it was full of his grandmother's borscht." Nikko countered, providing the countersign that she was expecting to hear. "Captain C said that you were looking for a new outfit, let's maybe have a conversation?"

Judy grinned at him with both tusks, "You keep feeding me drinks, omae, and I'll conversation with you, sure..." He felt an inward shiver at the sight of those fangs, rabbit or not, she was the Pred here.

Within an hour, Nikko realized that he might be in over his head. Judy was dead set on boozing, and if he wanted to keep talking to her then he was going to have to keep up with the rowdy bun. But his first pint of TuskSplitter had turned into four, and then Judy wanted to do shots of this horrible mescal, that she swore was from the secret recipe of the dragon governor of Yucatan State. Nikko was no expert, but he thought that it would have to be brewed by a dragon to get that much fiery kick to it. They were getting on famously, though, Nikko knew enough inside gossip from Ares and blatant rumormongering from city hall to keep her interested in what he had to say. Judy, as it turned out, was recently back on the free market as a runner, she had completed a course of aluminum bone lacing six months ago, and was looking to finance a more complete set of muscle augmentations.

But now he was starting to slur a bit, and had he just gone on a five minute tirade about parking tickets, of all things? She had begun smiling at him an awful lot, and showing a LOT of teeth as she did so. Was that a good sign, or a bad sign? Somewhere halfway down the bottle of Pobrecito, the band had broken into a jangly electric version of Try Everything; Judy had grabbed Nikko by the arm and dragged him onto the crowded dance floor. "I LOVE this song!" she had screamed into his ear, as she pogo-hopped and slammed into his side. Nikko forced a grin and slammed back in to her, to a visual inspection he was a genuine Ork, but his muscles were not any stronger than the set he had woken up with that morning. Judy didn't know it but she had come close to knocking the wind out of him. He was going to have to do something drastic, unless he wanted to get accidentally knocked unconscious by a friendly head butt.

Filching the bottle from her grasp and taking a quick swig, he started to lead her in the dance, hands meeting her hands and moving through the steps of a Nova-Swing skill software that he had idly purchased a few years before. Pre-programmed muscle movements fired rapidly through his brainstem, down and out though his body without conscious thought or control. Step with the left, then cross with the right, open turn and then kick; he was amazed to see that Judy was following his every move with enthusiasm, even if she was a bit unsteady. He grinned back at her and led her through an open spin, then another cross over, then the jump flip. And it was at this point that Nikko realized that he was not going to be able to catch a hundred and twenty kilos of jump flipped Ork. Oh crap.

Judy's weight bore him to the ground, bouncing his head off the worn concrete, the bottle skittering away across the dance floor. His arms were wrapped around her, trying to protect her, stupid mistake given that she was engineered to be more durable than he. Dazed, he tried to rise, and his muzzle met Judy's where she sprawled on top of him. Wait a second, was she kissing him? Nikko's eyes regained focus and saw Judy's eyes staring back from a few inches away, the violet irises half lidded and giving him a smoldering look. When she broke the lip-lock for air, Nikko grinned sheepishly and asked "Would you believe that I saw that in a trideo once?"

"Oh, Mister Johnson," she purred back, "Look at what you've done. You're in no fit condition to be out in public, let's get you somewhere a bit more, hmmm, private..." She pulled them both to their feet and towards the exit, grabbing a fresh bottle out of the bartender's hands as they passed. Nikko hurriedly flipped him an unmarked cred chip as he was carried along by the determined rabbit, past the big troll bouncer that he had first encountered at the door this evening. He tried to avoid the Troll's shocked gaze, and muttered something about "not being that kind of an uncle" as they headed out into the night.

 

The next morning was not kind to Nikko, his hangover so vicious that he couldn't even open his eyes. He shuddered in half-wakefulness and curled further under the blankets, before realizing that he wasn't alone in the bed. Coarse short fur rubbed against his cheek, a meaty forearm was wrapped around his torso, and a heavy predatory musk was all around him. Nikko's mind started to race, had he gone sniffing after Money again? Finn would never let him live it down if he had slept with their decker.

Out of long-accustomed mercenary habit, Judy's body started to come awake with the rising of the sun, even if her mind wanted to slither down a drain pipe and slowly marinade in its sickly hangover poisons. She took a personal inventory, she had lost her last gig, she was broke, she had another payment on the bone lacing due in a week, and she knew what Big and Rich did to shadowrunners who weren't able to meet their obligations. On the positive side, she had her good health (at least after she found some soykaff and a packet of painkiller), and there was another body spooning against her in the bed. Pulling the mystery partner close, she started to sniff at the lightly scented fur. An Elf? She shrugged inwardly; it wouldn't be the first time...

Quickly, Nikko switched over to his commlink, paging though his email stack as the other body in the bed started to rouse, wrapping him in a powerful embrace and beginning to nibble at his left ear. Flipping through spam, reports from his gossip rag feeds, a memo from his old day-services company - here was something useful, a message from Finn, must have come in some time in the early morning. He decrypted and opened it, trying to ignore the paws running up and down his chest, then downwards toward his groin. The nibbling at his ear was becoming painful, going from love bites to a strong tugging, and the arm not currently reaching for his package was wrapped around his torso in a bone-creaking embrace. Nikko winced in pain, and quickly paged through the message from Finn;

> **FROM: Finnegan  
>  TO: Nikko  
>  RE: SHE HUSTLED YOU GOOD!**

There was an embedded file, a grainy darkvision-enabled vid-clip shot through a vehicle’s window. There he was in his Ork illusion disguise, arms wrapped around Judy, his muzzle buried in her cleavage as she threw back her head, howling with laughter before tossing him through the door of a Zuber hire-car. Finn must have caught them leaving the night before, but apparently he didn't care to intervene. Nikko's mind started to race, if that was the night before, then what had happened to his disguise? All Awakened magic was limited in duration, coming undone at sunrise or sunset, unless careful preparations were made to sustain it. Nikko forced his eyes to open and looked down at his hands, seeing the long, delicate fingers with their neatly trimmed nails. Back to his Elf form again. Judy was going to absolutely kill him when she figured it out.

Judy gave up on the ear-play when she heard her bed-mate gasp for the second or third time, leave it to an Elf to not be receptive to that little kink. He was really starting to fidget, trying to get out of her clutches, but she wasn't going to let him until she got at least one more round in. After that, she would figure out exactly where she was, and then she was going to have to call that contact she had met at the Slaughterhouse the night before, the one who had made her that offer that she wasn't going to be able to afford to refuse. What was his name again? "Rick? Rick-o? No, started with an N..." She muttered to herself as she continued to paw at the Elf, who now was really making a concerted effort to wriggle out of her grasp. Frowning in irritation, she levered herself up with her left arm and pinned him to the mattress, growling "Be still until Momma Bear figures out what she's going to do with you."

She jolted in surprise as she heard him start to squeal in panic: "Oh god, I'm sorry Judy, please don't kill me! I didn't mean to sleep with you, I just needed to get into the Slaughterhouse and Finn has done this to me a few times before and Ijustneededtotalkwithyou Ithinkyou'rereallygreatpleasedon'tkillme..."

Blinking, she asked "Nikko?"

They sat across from each other in the little cafe of the coffin hotel, neither one looking at the other. Judy was dressed in her combat gear; Nikko was wearing the same pair of pants from last night, and a disposable ScrubEEZ pullover from the vending machines. "So you," Judy began, "you wanted to hire me that bad? Bad enough to walk into a greenskin bar?"

Nikko nodded, taking a sip of the cooling immitation coffee. "Wanted to? No. Needed to? Definitely. You-know-who says that you have the chops, and after GMan bought it on that raid against Alpacnology, we've been short on muscle."

Judy nodded, trying to work the angles. She needed the work, which was undeniable. Nikko was charming and seemed like he was capable of bringing in good jobs. But this was a hell of a way to start working with a new crew, having fucked the team leader within a few hours of having met him. She might be a bunny, and and Ork, but she wasn't a slut. What would the rest of the team think? She cleared her throat and asked "Standard four-way split? After expenses and deductions?"

Nikko nodded, "After expenses, before deductions. We'll get you on DogWagon as soon as we can, definitely before anything major comes up. Full accrual to next of kin or other designate, um, in the unfortunate event..." He trailed off, thinking of that disastrous last run.

Judy thought for a moment, then reached out and took his hand, pumping it up and down in a firm handshake. "Mr. Wylde, you've got yourself a new Gun Bunny."

**Author's Note:**

> I really enjoyed Boney_M's Shadowbun story from last week, and I wanted to jump on the bandwagon for this TT submission. Obviously this will make a lot more sense if you know the Shadowrun RPG universe, but imagine Tolkienesque fantasy plopped into 2050's era cyberpunk. Orks and Trolls (the so called Goblinized races) are a new underclass, (some) Elves consider themselves the new master race, and they don't get along at ALL. Dwarves will just kick you in the junk and drink their beer either way...
> 
> Coffin hotel, think of the Japan style capsule hotel. Nikko and Judy were probably shacked up in a troll-sized unit, but they all come with Awakened bedbugs and dirty bedsheets.
> 
> Pobre is the name of the Feathered Serpent (Central/South American dragon subspecies, did I mention there are dragons now?) that was part of the EU fiction, he was a general pain in the ass to Aztechnology and ended up as the "Governor" of the breakaway Yucatan State. Pobrecito is a soy-based grain alcohol that trades on his name in the Zootopian version of UCAS, but don't tell that to Judy.
> 
> Mister Johnson is the generic psueudonym for respectable types negotiating with 21'st century murder-hobos, in case you don't want to have your real name associated with whatever terrible plan they come up with to earn your money. Judy watches too much bad trideo and is trying roleplay the hard-boiled, sexy mercenary. Dumb bunny...
> 
> Who was the late, lamented GMan? Who knows... Could have been a simple baker, driven to a life of violence and crime when his business was driven into the ground by a Mafia grudge.
> 
> I freely admit that I know next to nothing about dance, I just opened up the Wiki for Glossary_of_dance_moves and started grabbing anything that looked sensible. Hopefully Nikko would not have accidentally kung-fu'ed Judy into next week with those moves...


End file.
